This is a collection of original poems which began with some about geology, which is why it’s called Geoverse; but there are now poems on all sorts of things – life, the universe, and (almost) everything. Click ‘About the author’ (above) to find out who wrote them . . .To meet all the poems, most recent first, just keep scrolling down the page (there were about 600 at the last count).To find a list of poems on a particular subject, use the Index tab (above), or enter a term in the Search box (below right) , or click a Topic (on the right).I hope you find something you like! Gordon Judge

[Image: medium.com]

As a granddaughter excitedly informed me, Cardea was the ancient Roman goddess of the hinge (Roman doors being hung on simple pivot hinges).

To a Roman of old, the world was controlled
By gods, male and female, or so we are told
By inscriptions and pictures on wall and mosaic:
Some were all-powerful, others prosaic.
Yet who would have thought that, way out on the fringe
There was one called Cardea, goddess of the hinge!

She wasn’t alone, though: to help her keep guard
Over what could come into the house from the yard
Were Forculus, god of the opening door,
And Limentinus, keeping the threshold secure.
But to my simple mind, there’s none can impinge
On Cardea, goddess of the pivotal hinge!

[Image: nestbox.co.uk]

All terrestrial dinosaur lineages became extinct some 65 or 66 million years ago. Some blame the volcanic eruptions that formed the Deccan traps, others cite the Chicxulub asteroid impact. But could it be that, if the effects of the former had put them under ecological stress, the effects of the latter could then have finished them off – the “pressure-pulse” hypothesis? This unfinished report, filed by a Late Cretaceous correspondent, has just been discovered:

I’m a dinosaur philosopher with a hard-earned PhD
In Palaeogeobioevolution.
I’ve studied dino species in their great diversity
And found a problem needing resolution.

We’ve colonised all niches in air and land and sea,
And modified our body plans to fit.
But no niche could protect us if some great catastrophe
Should happen to this Earth: we’d all be hit!*

This is the Late Cretaceous, and for some time now, the sky
Has had a reddish tinge. The air is hot
And smells of something strange. I cannot help but wonder why –There’s something going on, I dunno what.

It’s putting heavy pressure on our staid old dino ways.
“Look out for ‘pressure-pulse’”, it’s often said.Hey, what’s that bright fast-flying thing that looks like it’s ablaze?
Is that the ‘pulse’? If so . . . we’ll soon be . . .

*Except for the lineage leading to birds – but our correspondent couldn’t have known that.

[Image: sheds.co.uk]

If you are trying to explain a mystery, you can give a name to what the explanation might be so you can talk about it; but beware of being certain that it actually exists.

Epicycles, crystal spheres, ‘absolute’ time and space,
Impetus, dark matter (holding galaxies in their place),
Dark energy, phlogiston and fundamental particles* –
All these have been proposed as hypothetical articles.

Such words have been invented, throughout mankind’s short history,
By philosophers and scientists when they confront a mystery.
But giving names to mysteries can make them seem so real :
It’s never long before they gain great popular appeal.

The older ones have been replaced (by orbits, relativity,
Oxygen, momentum) with increased objectivity.
But some remain, so when you hear them bandied all about,
Do bear in mind they’re models, and maintain a sceptic’s doubt.

[Images: Wikimedia]

An announcement in a local supermarket asked all available shop floor staff to assemble “for a rumble”. (I had to ask a member of staff, but apparently it means ‘to tidy up the stock after the customers have messed it all up’.)

“This store is in a jumble:
Those ill-stacked goods could tumble
And spill our own-brand crumble,
So customers could stumble –
What oaths they then would mumble!
So get out there and rumble.”

[Image: maggienotmargaret.com]

It’s old, blue, expensive and was used in the eyes of the 25th-century BC statue of Ebih-Il, a praying man. But can it do you any good? (There are two ways to pronounce the final vowel of ‘lazuli’: I have used the ‘ee’ version here.)

It’s beautiful and deepest blue;
It looks so good, it can’t be true!
Recorded in antiquity,
Its name is . . . lapis lazuli.

From old Archean rocks it’s mined; examine it, and you will find
That lovely lapis lazuli has metamorphic ancestry.
(It’s lazurite that gives the hue which colours lapis richly blue,
This mineral making up, you see, the bulk of lapis lazuli).

[Image of Ebih-Il’s eyes: Wikimedia]

The word ‘grockle’ is a joy. Apparently, it refers, in a somewhat derogatory way, to a tourist, having possibly first appeared as a strip cartoon ‘Danny and his Grockle’ in the Dandy comic. I thought it so good that its use ought to be extended into other parts of speech.

We like to go a’grockling
On a wide and sandy shore;
We grockle on and on, until
We cannot grockle more.

Our grocklet children grockle;
We taught ’em all we know:
The easy way of grockling fast,
And how to grockle slow.

When we grow old and grockly,
If people ask, we’ll say:
“The secret of a happy life?
Go grockling every day!”

Tomorrow, I’ll be older than the age I am today.
Then I shall say, tomorrow, “I was younger yesterday!”
But that is true for every day, you see; so here’s the truth:
It proves conclusively I’ve spent my whole life in my youth!

[Image: http://optimallifeseminars.com]

As parents, grandparents, aunts and uncles well know, most children come with more energy than their bodies can hold. Here’s a possible solution:

Whoever invented children (not yet identified)
Made their bodies far too small for the energy inside.
The surplus oozes out of them as they run and jump and shout;
They bounce around and tumble over, and things get thrown about . . .

But what if we could harness this extra energy
By fitting them with Smart Clothes that charged a battery?
(Piezoelectric shoes1, worn hour after hour
With triboelectric underclothes2, could generate much power.)

Then, with a mains inverter, you’d plug the battery in,
And sell that stored-up energy to the Grid. It’s win-win-win!
There’s no-emissions, fuel is saved, and climate change is slowed;
And the Grid’s own Feed-In Tariff will pay you what you’re owed.

[Image: www.psychologies.co.uk]

He’s been driving eight reindeer across the Christmas night sky since 1823, when a poem by Clement C. Moore “A Visit from St. Nicholas” (also known as “‘Twas the Night Before Christmas”) appeared. Rudolf was added in 1923 in a poem by Robert L May. But time and technology have moved on . . .
Dear Father Christmas, a word in your ear:
It’s time you stopped using those worn-out reindeer.
Old Dasher and Dancer and Prancer and Vixen
And Comet and Cupid and Donner and Blitzen
Have whizzed round the globe, led by Rudolph’s red nose,
Delivering presents, as every child knows,
Each dark Christmas night for year after year;
But it’s getting too much for them now, Sir, I fear.

I know they don’t use hydrocarbon-based fuel,
And I’m sure that you really don’t mean to be cruel,
But by my calculations, the speed that you need
Is nought point nine seven percent of light’s speed*.
It’s not fair to those animals to fly them so fast:
Retire them, Sir, now. Please make this year their last.
Replace them with a Warp Drive (from Star Trek Online);
Send your reindeer to live their last days on Cloud Nine.

* According to Tom Chivers, in The Telegraph, 20 December 2013

[Image: pngall.com]

On 15 October 1997, the Cassini orbiter and its Huygens probe left Earth for a 20-year journey to Saturn. Neither of them returned to Earth, of course, but a huge amount of data and some remarkable photographs did.

(Artist’s impression)

The craft they called Cassini looked very, very teeny
’Gainst Saturn and its rings, each one aglow,
Collecting lots of data so that, a little later,
It could beam them back to Earth, so far below.

NASA’s little star had travelled very far:
Round Venus, using gravity-assist
(The experience was so nice that it went and did it twice).
Then Earth and Jupiter were on its list.

Then came Saturn’s turn, and we were soon to learn
Of the next phase in Cassini’s grand campaign:
Through Titan’s atmosphere the Huygens probe would disappear
And land upon a pebble-strewn terrain.

Enceladus came next: we just did not expect
Its plumes of icy water, which contains
Methane, hydrogen and salt, CO2 and – who’d have thought –
There’s silica, as microscopic grains1!

There’s so much more to tell about other moons as well,
Some mini-moons, quite titchy little things:
Anthe, Daphnis, Pallene are just three Cassini’s seen,
And ‘Peggy’ being ‘born’ among the rings2.

There she is – the blip on the outer edge of Saturn’s outermost ‘A’ ring!

Then Cassini, all alone, took a photo of its home,
The planet Earth within a ring-gap framed.
But NASA had intended that the journey would be ended
With a final death-plunge at the planet aimed . . .

Obituary

It’s such a crying shame that, despite its world-wide fame,
Cassini had to end its quest of pics.
But its NASA-planned demise – to crash through Saturn’s skies –
Has made Cassini part of Planet Six3.

1. See https://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/news/2529/ 2. It seems that ‘Peggy’ might have fragmented since her first sighting, perhaps after a collision . . .3. On 15 September, 2017. RIP.

[Image: theecologist.org]

Humans used to think they were what evolution, and the Universe itself, had been aiming at all along. Some still do. It seems that a certain Ediacaran fossil from the late Precambrian (around 550 million years ago) had much the same view of herself . . .

They call me Edie Acaran. Evolution stops with me.
I am the very pinnacle of the evolutionary tree.
Not like my ancient forebears: they thought they were cool cats,
But the best that they came up with were mere microbial mats –
Bacteria just divide their cells, but that is so passé.
But fortunately my ancestors evolved a better way:
I reproduce by stolons. It’s the only way, you know,
To move around the sea-bed on the sediments below.

I have a frond and holdfast, and a stalk to join the two:
A multicellular marvel, the newest of the new!
My holdfast brings me minerals* from the rock it’s stuck me to;
And my frond has so much surface that nutrients permeate through*.
My Universe is water. There’s nothing else, it’s clear.
Whichever way I turn my frond, it’s water, far and near.
Yes, evolution stops here. I am perfect, top to toe.
My body plan’s so complex, there’s nowhere else to go . . .

[Image: Wikimedia]

If hiccups afflicts you and you can’t endure it,
Here is a quick way – perhaps– that will cure it:
Just squeeze your thumb hard*. You really should try it:
Your hiccups, you’ll find, will soon go quite quiet!

[Image: readersdigest.co.uk]

The laws formulated by Newton and Einstein imply that things can’t happen all at once. The quantities called ‘mass’ and ‘inertia’ are measures of a thing’s resistance to having its state of rest, or motion, changed. Stuff take time to happen. But supposing it didn’t . . .

A ⇒ b ⇒ c ⇒ d ⇒ E

Stuff cannot change location
When going from A to E
Without a smooth transition
Through b and c and d.

And we perceive this process:
“Time’s passing,” we declare.
We’re used to something taking
Time to get to here from there.

But if stuff had no inertia
And could miss out bcd,
Than everything would happen
Instantaneously!

“That cannot be,” says Einstein,
“You’d need an infinite force!
And nothing can go faster
Than the speed of light, of course.”

And life needs time to happen,
Or we’d be born and die
Without the time to say:
“Well, Hello, world. Goodbye”.

It seems we must be patient.
The message of this rhyme
Is this: to live a life at all,
You have to give it time.

The other day, I saw a show of parasitic mistletoe.
It sucks the juices from the wood, which does not do it any good.
Birds eat its seeds1, which go right through and stick on to a branch in poo,
Or get spat out (just for the thrill), or maybe wiped off from their bill.

Christmas picking does no good: once mistletoe’s invaded wood,
Its hypocotyls2 get a grip and add haustoria3 at their tip.
The poor host plant is out of luck: those darned haustoria can suck
Its nutrients; and, as you know, they’ll help the mistletoe to grow.

To rid a plant of mistletoe, all affected wood must go.
Or, if you like, it would be fine to harvest it at Christmas-time
And sell it – you can charge a lot. Say, “This is good for you-know-what:Just hold it up above her head and soon the pair of you’ll be wed!”

1. Actually, drupes, because each has a ‘stone’ inside; the actual seed is inside the ‘stone’. But no-one uses ‘drupes’ in ordinary conversation.2. The part of the stem of an embryo plant beneath the stalks of the seed leaves (cotyledons) and directly above the root.3. A haustorium is a special organ of parasitic plants, which invades host tissues and serves as the structural and physiological bridge that allows the parasites to withdraw water and nutrients from the conductive systems of living host plants.

[Images: Davidson College; Tiverton Academy]

In the 1990s, the Hipparcos satellite enabled scientists to use triangulation techniques to calculate the distance of the Pole Star, Polaris, from Earth. Their answer was 434 light-years (a light-year is a tad under 6 trillion miles). But in 2012, astronomer David Turner analysed the spectrum of its light and concluded that the star was ‘only’ 323 light-years away. Polaris fluctuates in brightness, however, and the Hipparcos team think that Turner might not have taken this adequately into account, using a higher value which would have made the star appear closer. Someone has set out to decide who’s right:

I am a light ray, and I’m well on my way
From Polaris towards your blue planet.
I have used the ‘straight’ lines that space-time defines
On my journey, since first I began it.

When shall I arrive? Well, I’d better contrive
To work out the timings involved:
I’m travelling at c1 on my trajectory –
But one problem still has to be solved.

I need your assistance to find out the distance
From Polaris to Earth: but oh dear!
It seems you’re not sure what it is any more,
And the error’s not just a light-year.

The problem’s Polaris, for this sort of star is
The sort whose brightness keeps changing.
If you measure it wrong, it’ll not be too long
Till your sums will all need rearranging.

If Dave Turner’s correct, well then I’d expect
To arrive a whole century sooner.
But I trust Hipparcos2 to measure my star, ’cos
It’s been such a great cosmos-tuner:

If Hipparcos is right, and the time of my flight
Is four-three-four years, it’ll show
That Dave Turner was wrong (as I guessed all along).
If you doubt it, ask me – I should know!

1 ‘c’ is the usual symbol for the speed of light in a vacuum, which is about 670,616,629 mph.2 http://sci.esa.int/hipparcos/47357-fact-sheet/ 3 A very precise measure of angle: there are 3.6 billion milliarcseconds in just 1 degree!4 Wikipedia reckons the estimated total number of stars in our Milky Way galaxy to be “between 200 and 400 billion”

[Image: astronomynow.com]

Volcanic eruptions are notoriously unpredictable. But analysis of thin sections of crystals in lava from Mexico’s Popocatépetl has enabled researchers to probe the subterranean travels of magma as it flows from one chamber to another on its convoluted journey to the vent. It’s too late, though, to be of any help to the early inhabitants of nearby Tetimpa, who migrated to a new settlement further north, leaving remains that were found by archaeologists nearly two millennia later.

Though Popocatépetl looks like a boiling kettle,
With steam escaping from its open spout,
You must be on your mettle, or Popocatépetl
Will do its level best to catch you out.

(Tetimpa’s folk knew well that it wasn’t wise to dwell
When old Popo was about to blow his top:
For they had learned to tell when to stay or run like hell
And sacrifice to Popo their corn crop*.)

Now researchers are learning what keeps old Popo churning:
Using petrographic microscopes, they’ve found
That a greyer crystal section means a rapid, hot injection
Of magma hit a chamber underground;

And each crystal’s grey-scale banding provides some understanding
Of mineral diffusion rates, which show
How long the magma took (you can read it like a book!)
To travel through the labyrinth below.

Of course, diffusion stops when old Popo’s crater pops
And magma hits the cooler outside air–
That’s how you can assess how long (well, more or less)
The magma had remained entombed in there.

Some six and forty years is the answer, it appears*,
Which suggests eruptions here, my source reports,
Will not be quite as bad as what killed Young Pliny’s dad –
A ‘Plinian’ eruption – fame of sorts!

You couldn’t really apply that term to the location of the prostate gland.

Here’s this week’s competition: design a prostate gland
In such a way that there is room to let the thing expand.
The current one works well, initially, at least.
But when the blooming thing gets fat, the prostate is a beast.

I mean, it’s wrapped around a vital piece of plumbing,
So, when it grows, it slows the flow! It really is mind-numbing.
And that’s not all: it pokes into the nearby bladder,
Thereby preventing emptying. It’s not just mad, it’s madder!

It’s in the wrong place, really. Intelligent design?
If so, the guy who planned it should rapidly resign.
No, it was evolution (which has no long-term plan)
That put the prostate where it is and made things tough for Man.

Poor Sophie Stegosaurus! In Wyoming, USA,
She might have either starved to death or fallen ill one day.
She died while adolescent, a death quite undeserved,
And yet her bones – well, most of them – were luckily preserved.

They’ve photographed her bones from her tail-spikes to her noddle,
Then stitched them all together in a 3-D computer model.
And why, I hear you ask? Well, in her digital state,
These folk can tweak their algorithms to estimate her weight.

They ‘convex-hulled’ poor Sophie – pulled a ‘skin’ around her, tight,
Then added 21% to get the volume right.
With a crocodilian density, her mass could then be sought:
Some sixteen hundred kilograms, or half what once was thought!

Now here’s an intriguing postscript: Although, throughout this taleI’ve called its heroine Sophie,‘She’ could, in fact, be male . . .

[Images: Wikimedia]

Did the truelove of the writer of the eighteenth-century carol forget what he’d sent her the day before? The unfortunate recipient (whom I thought most likely female) received a total of 376 items over the pre-Christmas period. But, necessity being the mother of invention, she had hatched a cunning plan . . .

On the first day of Christmas, my truelove sent to me A partridge in a pear tree.

So I emailed my truelove: “What am I s’posed to do
With a partridge and a pear tree? My love, I thought you knew
I haven’t got a garden to plant the pear tree in;
And that partridge in the hallway is making such a din!”

On the second day of Christmas, my truelove sent to me Two turtle doves And a partridge in a pear tree.

He hadn’t read my email! They’re clogging up the hall,
Those partridges and pear trees which I didn’t want at all!
I’ll ring him up . . . he’s out. That leaves me pretty vexed:
I hope he’s not gone shopping – who knows what he’ll buy next?

On the third day of Christmas, my truelove sent to me Three French hens,Two turtle dovesAnd a partridge in a pear tree.

Now this is getting silly. Where shall I put them all?
The French hens weren’t too happy when I shoved them in the hall
With three partridges in pear trees, and four doves – I think that’s it . . .
(I had to prune the trees a bit, to make sure they would fit.)

By the seventh day of Christmas, can you guess what I had got? Despite all my pleas, Twelve turtle doves, Fifteen French hens, Sixteen calling* birds, Fifteen go-old rings; Twelve geese a’cackling, Seven swans a’swimming, And some partridges in some pear trees.

On the two next days of Christmas, my truelove sent to me The usual, and some girls:

Sixteen maids a’milking, in a rustic sort of way,
And nine ladies dancing – what is he trying to say?
By now, my house was full, jam-packed to overflowing;
What would he send me next? There was no way of knowing . . .

On next two days of Christmas, my truelove sent to me The usual, and some blokes:

Twenty lords a’leaping, eleven pipers piping –
The neighbours heard the racket, from behind their curtains peeping,
But soon came out to join the fun, and now the street was humming!
And then – my truelove’s master stroke – came twelve drummers drumming!

I saw a chance to make some cash (my truelove wouldn’t know):
I’d charge them all to watch it – my Festive Christmas Show!
And then I’d sell the pear trees, set free a turtle dove
And a calling bird or two to fly to my truelove.
I’d flog, for Christmas dinners, those geese and fat French hens –
But I’d give the swans back to the Queen, so we could still be friends.
And, finally, I’d auction off each lovely golden ring.
Then I will thank my truelove. What will next Christmas bring!

[Images: tcsoftware.net; postoffice.co.uk]

Some turkeys are labelled ‘self-basting’. I wondered how a turkey, in a hot oven, could baste itself. So I asked an expert:

I’m a turkey that’s self-basting. What it means I’ve not a clue,
It’s just a rather clever thing that I have learned to do.
It takes a lot of practice: you lay upon your back,
And flap your wings about like mad! Well, I soon learned the knack.

The farmer never told me why I should be so skilled.
“Don’t do it,” croaked my turkey mates. “He’ll only have you killed,
Then sell you for a premium: ‘Self-basting,’ he will claim.”
I just ignored them, turned away and practised just the same.

“It’s so that, when they roast you in a pan of your own juice,
Your wings (what’s left of them) will flap . . . He’s not listening, it’s no use!
. . . And when they flap, those juices will splash all over you.
We don’t know why they pay for this, we just know that they do.”

Well, now, it’s nearly Christmas and my mates have disappeared.
Here comes the farmer – oh, dear me, will it be just as they feared?
Look – he’s got a label: “Self-basting, easy-roast!”
And there’s a look upon his face that seems to say “You’re toast!”

So, when you buy your turkeyI hope you’ll buy ‘self-basting’.My practice will have been worthwhileIf it’s made me better-tasting.

[Image: momsbudget.com]

Books that try to explain quantum mechanics seem to end up saying “you can’t expect to understand it”. I fell at the first hurdle, when I tried to find a definition of ‘particle’ that I could picture in my head. One said “Particles are purely mathematical objects”, which didn’t help much, because I couldn’t picture something that was “purely mathematical” as an “object”.

A particle’s a lump of stuff and looks just like a ball
I thought. But now they say that’s not enough when things get really small.
If you keep cutting stuff in two, there comes a time, my friend,
Beyond which ‘particle’ won’t do, where imagery must end.

‘Cathode rays’ were particles, not ‘rays’ as they first thought;
But fired through slits, those articles did not do what they ought!
Such things should, when they hit a screen, have formed two bands of light.
Instead, what patterning was seen? Alternate dark and bright!

And light, they knew, would do the same (it’s how a wave behaves).
Then into the fray de Broglie1 came: “Think particles and waves”.
Said Schrödinger2: “A good idea, but a wavefunction’s superior,
Though it needs some fancy maths, I fear, and some folk think it’s eerier3.

“It’s mathematical, you see: how probable, through space,
That ‘particle’ or wave might be to exist at any place.
What’s more, until you take a look, it might be anywhere4!
It’s in the maths – just read my book5 – but you should not despair:

“Your brain has learned to process things to keep you out of danger
By picture-based imaginings. But QUANTUM things are stranger . . .
Reality’s not what your brain is telling you. Instead
It’s spooky, weird: you’ll try in vain to ‘see’ it in your head.”

Well, that’s what physicists declare. Religions do the same:
They say there is a ‘god’ out there who’s in control, they claim.
And then they leave your poor old brain to picture in your head
This entity which, they explain, you’ll ‘see’ when you are dead . . .

I like my brain. I couldn’t live without it. With each breath
It paints me ‘pictures’ that contrive to help avoid my death.
But now I’m stuck. As you’ll have guessed, when QUANTUM comes to call,
Although my poor brain does its best, it’s really much too small.

1. The French physicist, Louis-Victor-Pierre-Raymond, 7th Duke of Broglie (1892–1987). Broglie is in Normandy, 60 km south-west of Rouen. 2. Not in exactly these words, though . . . 3. Or, as Einstein described an aspect of quantum theory, “spooky”. 4. According to some interpretations, that is. 5. Actually, a paper in a physics journal: Schrödinger, E. “An Undulatory Theory of the Mechanics of Atoms and Molecules”, Physical Review, Vol. 8 No. 6, 1049–1070.

Amateur geologists have found a remarkable array of fossils from quarries used to extract the Weald Clay for brickmaking.

In the brickpits of Sussex and Surrey
Are fossils of life that’s long dead:
There’s an arthropod trackway, teleost1 fish,
Amber, and a Plant Debris Bed;

There are earwigs, weevils and beetles,
Crickets and old termite poo,
Snakeflies and lacewings, clam shrimps and wasps,
Crocodile teeth, and frogs, too!
Egg cases of sharks, a small fish jaw,
Fishy otoliths2, palates and more,
What was almost the world’s first flowering plant3,
Cycads, and molluscs galore.
On this land, in the Lower Cretaceous,
Dinosaurs roamed far and near:Baryonyx, Iguanodon, Horshamosaurus,All died and were fossilised here.

From the Weald Clay of Sussex and Surrey
These fossils of life that’s long dead
Have been saved from the heat of the brickmakers’ ovens
And preserved in collections, instead.

1. Ray-finned
2. Ear-stones, which helped the fish to orientate and balance
3. Called Bevhalstia, but new finds from China might prove to be earlier

Image of Smokejacks quarry: Peter Austen (with permission)

A sock of mine’s gone missing. Where can the rascal be?
If you are out there, somewhere, please come back home to me.
I won’t be cross, I promise; I understand your plight:
You’re trodden underfoot all day, abandoned every night.

Your other half is lonely without you. She’s bereft:
She hasn’t left the wardrobe since the moment that you left.
I’ve emptied drawers and cupboards, I’ve probed the washing machine,
I’ve searched in every single nook and the crannies in between.

Perhaps my sock has passed away and gone to socky heaven;
Or maybe it has hitched a lift to John o’ Groats or Devon.
Perhaps there’s a Society of which my sock’s a member;
Or maybe socks have Socky Games, and my sock’s a contender;

Or else he’s done a runner with a lady sock. If so,
He is a silly sock; but then socks will be socks, you know . . .
Well, I’ve got other things to do and, looking at the clock,
There’s really nothing else to say but “fare thee well, old sock”.

[Image: 2.bp.blogspot.com]

Assertions are “confident and forceful statements of fact or belief”, says the dictionary. But how can you tell if the confidence is justified? The answer defines a key difference between religion and science (see also ‘Science and religion’).

“Words written long ago,” religious folk protest,
“Came from prophets, and allow no questioning or test.
They say an entity called ‘God’ exists in mystic form,
Which made and rules the universe, and we must all conform.”

“What use are such assertions,” the science people shout,
“You cannot claim that they are right unless you’ve checked them out!
Science’s assertions aren’t meant to be dogmatic:
They’re ‘right’ until they’re proven wrong – you could say they’re pragmatic . . .”

There’s one assertion that is true,
And has been throughout history:
It’s that our brains are not equipped
For understanding mystery.

[Image: myocn.net]

The sign at the entrance to the Grade II Listed Swanage Pier demanded payment for a particular gait.

“Strolling – 90p” declared the sign on Swanage Pier.
A price I didn’t want to pay, so I stepped up a gear:
I briskly walked straight past the sign. “Oi, can’t you read? It’s clear
Enough,” the pay-booth boomed, “This is a strolling Pier.

“Just look at all those other folk: they’re strolling. Why can’t you?
If you don’t want to stroll, that’s fine, but I won’t let you through.”
I speeded up, ignoring him, and broke into a run.
I reached the pierhead, then turned round and saw he had a gun . . .

Then I woke up. And I resolved that I would, on the whole, in
Swanage do as others do when on the Pier: go strollin’.
(That 90p’s a millionth of what the Pier must raise*
To make the structure strong again, as in its glory days.)

*Over £1m has already been raised but, according to the town’s Daily Echo in June 2016, a further £900,000 is needed to renovate the structure. See the Swanage Pier Trust website.

[Image (of a giant millipede): vivarium.wiki.com]

Interweb sources seem, by and large, to agree that at least 90% of the Earth’s crust is made of silicates. Starting in a molten magma, silicon atoms join up with oxygen atoms to create the basic building block of all silicate minerals, the tetrahedral molecule SiO4. On behalf of his brothers, a silicon atom explains:

We’re the kings of our castles: four oxygens surround us,
Each bound by strong covalent bonds we radiate around us.
Each O is like a turret that is negatively charged –
And that’s the way our empire is easily enlarged:
Our tetrahedral structures can stick themselves to others!
And in the spaces in between reside our cation brothers:
For olivine, magnesium and iron together blend
In relative proportions that on the magma’s mix depend:(Red spheres represent iron ions, yellow ones magnesium)

That’s where we atoms started – all runny , hot and jumbled;
But as we neared Earth’s surface, into these shapes we tumbled.
We silicates are common, for in diverse array
We make up most of Earth’s thin crust – so silicates rule, OK?

[Image: theapplefarm.com]

A researcher at the Natural History Museum insisted that folk like him were not ‘just dinosaur dusters’. But dinosaurs do have to be dusted, and as I pondered over who did such important work, this possible answer wafted through the aether (to the tunes of “We are the Ovaltineys” and “The Ovaltineys say Good-bye”). It might explain why you never seem to see them in action . . .

1. We are the Dino Dusters
We are the Dino Dusters, little girls and boys.
If you should see us, please don’t poke us
When you’re near the Diplodocus:
We clean its bones up every day
And don’t make any noise.The reason that we can’t be seenWhile dusting dinos nice and cleanIs ’cos we all drank Ovaltine,Which shrank* us girls and boys!

2. The Dino Dusters say Good-bye
So we’re not happy Dino Dusters:
We feel sad and blue.
The ads said “Drink your Ovaltine!” –
Who knew what it would do?
But we’ll be here again next Monday
To make things look like new;
And so until we meet again
The Dino Dusters bid you all adieu.

* As far as I know, there is no evidence to support this outrageous assertion.

If you freeze a Granddad, you must take especial care
To freeze him very quickly, so he doesn’t lose his hair.
(Some Granddads in the past, I’ve heard, were frozen much too slow:
Their hair fell out as icicles were given time to grow.)

And if you freeze a Granddad, I should warn you from the start,
Make sure you’ve got some sticky tape ’cos his legs might fall apart.
His ears will fall off anyway, and his nose might do so too,
And the rest of him will turn a quite disgusting shade of blue.

But if you freeze a Granddad, you’d best let Granny know,
In case she doesn’t spot the difference (well, you never know . . .).
The trouble is that Granddads don’t stay frozen long and, when their bodies melt,
The house will reek of odours that you’d wish you’d never smelt.

So if you freeze a Granddad, please do it out of doors.
Invite your friends to come and watch, then wait for their applause.
Then they can try it out on other Granddads they have chosen,
And very soon all Granddads will be absolutely frozen.

[Image:clipartkid.com]

(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter) I’m a butterfly!
I like to look down at the Earth as I flop around the sky,
But what I see is puzzling: I can’t help wondering why
I see no baby butterflies, however hard I try.

(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter) What I want to know
Is what are all those squidgy things a-wriggling down below?
All they seem to do is eat, and then they grow and grow!
Where do they all come from, and where do they all go?

(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter – there I go again!)
I sometimes wish I could have had a rather bigger brain
So I could work things out while I am sheltering from the rain.
But the answers all elude me, and my thinking’s all in vain.

(Flitter-flutter-flitter-flutter) A thought from out the blue:
If I was never a baby, then from what was it I grew?
Oh, surely not those wriggly things? No! How could that be true?
It really is a puzzle. Oh, how I wish I knew . . .

[Image: National Geographic Kids]

According to a paper in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Space Physics, the absorption of UV light emitted by Venus peaks in two regions of the spectrum, either side of 320 nm. The presence of sulphur dioxide in the Venusian atmosphere explains the shorter-wavelength peak; but the other ‘usual suspects’ for UV absorption, iron compounds and nitrogen dioxide, don’t have properties that would make them candidates for the other, longer-wavelength, absorption peak. Chlorine gas would fit the bill if it were present at around one part per million, but it’s not known whether this amount could be generated by the action of sunlight on molecules of hydrogen chloride. So the cause of the second absorber in the atmosphere of Venus remains a mystery. Could it be some form of life?

There’s something in the atmosphere of Venus which is queer,
It soaks up ultraviolet waves: they simply disappear,
Absorbed by who-knows-what in the planet’s upper sky.
Could it be chlorine molecules? Unlikely, and here’s why:

You’d need one part per million, and as far as I can tell
That means a lot of sunlight on a lot of HCl.
I have another theory. In those early Eagle comics,
Dan Dare would often get involved with alien genomics.

The Mekon and the Treens who lived on Venus way back then,
Outsmarted by Dan Dare, kept on coming back again.
I reckon things have got so hot now, on the planet’s surface crust*,
That all these green and evil guys evolved, as all things must.

I bet they have discovered ways to break up HCl
To manufacture hydrogen, and chlorine gas as well.
Sustained by breathing H2 gas, each on a Mekon chair,
They’ve moved their evil empire up into the Venusian air.

But they’ve no use for chlorine, so it just hangs around,
And UV light of certain wavelengths never leave the ground;
And that’s what makes the absorption peak in Venus’s emissions!
(We need Dan Dare to go there now and confirm my suspicions . . .)

There it was, gone! A custard tart, from a box of two in a Waitrose refrigerated display. With my extensive nursery-rhyme education, it was clear to me what had happened, but should I tell the staff, or might they think that I had eaten it?

The Queen of Hearts
She made some tarts,
All on a summer’s day,
And sent them off to Waitrose,
Who put them on display.

The Waitrose tart –
A custard tart,
And not one filled with jam –
Is my favourite tart of all
(It’s just the way I am).

They sold those tarts
From the Queen of Hearts
In boxes, each with two.But from one box one tart had gone –
The culprit? I know who:

The Knave of Hearts,He stole that tart!
(He’s done such things before:
The King of Hearts sore beat him,
And he vowed he’d steal no more.)

But it can’t be proved
The Knave removed
That pie (and he’d deny it).
Will Waitrose think I stole it?
I think I’ll just keep quiet . . .

[Images: Wikimedia Commons]

This is a tale of how a great deal of EU activity, aimed at ‘harmonising’ the mains voltage across its member states, ended up changing nothing except the number printed on electrical equipment, from “220” or “240” to “230”. (It would have been too expensive to change all of Europe’s 220 V electricity supply equipment and all of the UK’s 240 V equivalent). It’s also a cautionary tale about how it’s worth checking the facts before having a good rant.

The UK mains, though nominal,
Was once “240 volt”.
But now it is “230”, so
I’m planning a revolt.

It was th’ accursed EU
That made us Brits conform
To what its bureaucratic club
Thought ought to be the norm.

“We want our volts back”, I shall shout
As loud as I am able.
“British volts for British folk,Applied to British cable.”

But wait! I’ve read the small print!
“230” means, you see,
Anywhere from two-sixteen*
Right up to two-five-three.

In EU-speak, they’ve ‘harmonised’
That voltage-rating mess
By leaving things just as they were –
A Euro-fudge, I guess.

[Image: clipartsign.com]

Way out in space, 1.3 billion years ago, two black holes merged. On September 14 this year, the resulting gravitational waves were detected here on Earth by both of the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO), one in Louisiana, the other in Washington, USA. It reminded me of my low-tech dealings with gravity at school.

I measured gravity at school
With a stop watch, weight and string.
Four pi squared L over t squared – well,
It seemed a simple thing.

I was unlucky: no black holes,
Far out in space, collided
At just the right time long ago
To influence what I did.

I might have proved that gravity
Was waves, and moves like light.
And I’d be famous: I’d have shown
That Einstein got it right!

Now it’s too late. Two black holes merged
A billion* years ago,
And rippling spacetime got picked up
By the waiting arms of LIGO.

So well done, LIGO people.
Your findings are a hit,
And luck was on your side, not mine.
(I wish I’d had your kit!)

[Image: LIGO/Caltech]

The calendar’s got an extra day
This year, ’cos it’s a leap one.
I Googled what the reason was
And found it’s quite a deep one:

The Solar System doesn’t work,
Or so it would appear,
With seven days in every week
And twelve months in each year.

The Earth takes longer than a year*
To travel round the Sun,
And that’s why, every now and then,
The error must be undone.

Julius Caesar did his best –
A simple rule, for sure:
“Add a Leap Day if the year’s
Divisible by four”.

But things were much more subtle.
As the years got out of sync,
Pope Gregory piped up and said:
“The answer is, I think,

“To keep old Caesar’s bright idea,
But add a bit more to it.
So here, in 1582,
Is Pope Greg’s way to do it:

“Just test the year: if it divides
By a hundred, then it’s not one,
Unless you can divide it by
Four hundred – then you’ve got one!”

* According to NASA’s ‘Earth Fact Sheet’, it currently takes about 365.256 days for the Earth’s axis to return to the same alignment relative to the sun (the ‘tropical’ orbital period). The period ‘seen’ by the stars (the ‘sidereal’ period) is a teeny tad longer.

[Image: testeach]

Jonathan Gammon is Head of Ground Investigations for HS2, the government-funded company responsible for developing and promoting the UK’s new £42-billion high-speed railway network. The complete line is expected to be open by 2032 or 2033. In January 2016, he talked about the scope and depth of the company’s preparatory work needed before any track is actually laid – ‘de-risking’, he called it.

We’re checking it out, we’ve nearly done
All the planning for the groundwork to set up Phase 1.
Over half goes through tunnels or cuttings, and so
We’ve had to think hard where the spoil’s going to go.
Ninety per cent of it we aim to put back
Elsewhere in the route of the HS2 track.
Occupational Health’s a contractual clause
With good Health and Safety, to comply with our laws.

The HS2 Hybrid Bill’s now being debated
And modifications incorporated:
We’ve redesigned things and we’re doing our best
To take account of the views expressed.
We’ll do what we can, too, to mitigate impacts
On nature reserves, ancient woodlands, newts, bats,
Archaeology, SSSIs and much else beside,
While trying to lessen the North-South divide.

With contracts assigned, it’s now our intent
To seek, in December, the Royal Assent.
But there’s still an enormous amount to be done
To make sure the ground’s fit for the first train to run
In sixteen years’ time (or maybe one more) –
‘De-risking’ the project is what’s at our core.But this is Phase 1, and we’ve still yet to doAll the Ground Investigations to prepare for Phase 2!

[Image: www.railway-technology.com]

Near the end of Tchaikovsky’s ‘Pathétique’ Symphony, there’s a single, gentle stroke of the tam-tam (a type of gong). It marks the point at which the composer’s despair comes to the fore and the music fades away to its end. The symphony formed the second half of a performance by our local amateur orchestra, whose young percussionist sat quietly at the back through the whole of the first half (Brahms’ Double Concerto) even though he had nothing to play; and after his key contribution in the second half, he remained still. I was impressed by his sensitivity to the mood of the music. I think his name was Tim.

While the orchestra’s playing the Brahms,
The percussionist’s resting his arms.
He has practised his part,
So he knows in his heart
What’s to come will give him no qualms.

Even though he has nothing to do,
He sits the concerto right through;
But he comes to the fore in
Tchaikovsky’s sad scoring,
When a strike of the tam-tam is due.

With the beater in hand, he stands tall
As the crowded and hushed concert hall
Who have waited so long
For the sound of his gong
Hold their communal breath, one and all.

He’s counting the bars, you can tell;
He’ll have just one chance to do well . . .
Now the moment has come
And the job must be done –There! As clear as a bell!

The band now continues to play;
Reflecting Tchaikovsky’s dismay . . .But our man remains stillBy his tam-tam, untilThe music has faded away.

His demeanour was so dignified –
This guy felt the music inside.
Tchaikovsky would’ve said
(If he hadn’t been dead):
“That was cool, man – I’m well satisfied.”

[Image of Tchaikovsky: theGuardian/Lebrecht Music And Arts Photo Library/Alamy]

Multiple trackways of long-necked sauropod dinosaurs who walked through a shallow lagoon some 170 million years ago have been found in Middle Jurassic rocks at Cairidh Ghlumaig on the Isle of Skye. This explanatory message from one of the creatures has since emerged:

[Image (yes, it is the Queen!): Daily Mail]

Since 1985, I have been part of a long-term health study of (initially) over 10,000 people; thirty years on, only about 6000 are still participating. Every 5 years or so, we get a checkover of our physical and mental health: samples are taken, measurements are made and questions asked . . .

You’re welcome to my blood, height, weight and ecg,
You can take what hair you need (please leave a bit for me!).
You can test my grip strength, finger taps, my walking speed, and more,
How fast my pulse can travel, BP and IQ score.

I do it altruistically in part, but I’ve a hunch
I also like free travel and your slap-up sit-down lunch*.
I’ve used the feedback on my health: my blood pressure’s reduced,
Cholesterol too, and that’s all thanks to the data you produced.

[Image: clydehealthcare.com]

The Mullard Space Science Laboratory, an outpost of University College London, is housed in a mansion near Holmbury St Mary in the Surrey hills. From 13 projects submitted to a joint venture between the European Space Agency and the Chinese Academy of Sciences, MSSL’s ‘Solar Wind Magnetosphere Ionosphere Link Explorer’ (SMILE) mission was chosen for further assessment. It aims to measure how the Sun influences ‘space weather’ and the Earth’s magnetic ‘shield’ and, if preliminary studies are favourable, is currently expected to launch at the end of 2021. Dr Graziella Branduardi-Raymont, UCL’s Professor of Space Astronomy, is joint Principal Investigator of the mission.

At Holmbury St Mary, the atmosphere’s scary –
They dabble in things you can’t see!
To this spooky old place come strange signals from space
That they say could affect you and me . . .

It seems there’s no knowing how the solar wind’s blowing
Or how it might trouble our tech.
Will it cause an aurora, or mess up your aura,
Or leave our poor planet a wreck?

These folk want to know all the answers, and so
They put up ideas and they won
The funding to do a study or two;
But there still remains lots to be done.

They need gear that’s exotic, sort of astro-robotic:
A magnetometer (for the Earth’s field),
X-ray and UV telescopes, so they’ll see
The effect on Earth’s solar wind shield.

Professor Raymont will list what they’ll want
To make such a project worthwhile.
But there is a price; so, to make it sound nice,
They’ve given it a name: it’s called SMILE!

[Images: MSSL, ESA and the SMILE Proposal document]

Have you noticed how ‘good’ restaurants tend to plate up their food these days? It’s either arranged picturesquely on the plate or its ingredients are stacked vertically – sometimes both. Like the meals themselves, each of these two poems seemed to call for a different structure:

1: Edible art

Master chefs are not just cooks,
They’re artists, too; and so
They ‘paint’ their food upon the plate
Like Michaelangelo.

They surely know, these clever folk
Who in their kitchens lurk,
That customers just get stuck in
And desecrate their work?

All the effort, skill and flair
They put into that meal
Is mangled, cut up, squished and mauled.
I wonder how they feel?

I’d like to shower the chef with praise:
“Wow, that looks quite incredible!”
I never do, though. That’s because
Their ‘picture’s’ much too edible.

So when it’s put in front of me
I look at it and say,
“Oh dear, that’s much too good to eat,”
Then eat it anyway.

2: Perpendicular plating

Other chefs do things with food
That make it look seductive,
But how they put it on the plate
Makes me feel destructive.
As a child, I’d pile up towers,
And then I’d knock ’em down;
Now I can do that when I’m in
Posh restaurants in the town.
’Cos now, it’s chefs who build the piles,
With food stacked neat and tall.
I bet they’re proud of it – but pride
Comes right before a fall!

(It has to fall, to get at all
The lovely stuff that’s in it.
A work of art, that I demolish
In less than half a minute.)
It seems to be a current fad,
This perpendicular plating.
Perhaps they do it in the hope
They’ll get a higher rating?
But fashions change. There’ll come a time
They won’t do things like that again;
And Michelin-starred chefs will serve
Their food all laid out flat again.

[Images: cdn.view.co.uk; i.dailymail.co.uk]

Fossil remains found in 1985 in a brickpit at Rudgwick in Sussex were initially described as those of an iguanodon. Then, after a reassessment by Dr William Blows, they were later attributed to a new dinosaur polacanthid species, Polacanthus rudgwickensis. But, as hinted at in the Postscript to “Old Spiky“, they have now (September 2015) been re-classified by Dr Blows as Horshamosaurus rudgwickensis, recognising the Sussex town in whose museum they now reside. Someone is not happy . . .

They dug me up at Rudgwick some thirty years ago.
Well, exhumation’s one thing, but now this savage blow:
They’ve blooming well re-named me, though I’ve had two names before.
An existential crisis for a Rudgwick dinosaur –
I’m as confused as they are! “An iguanodon” they’d said,
Till Bill Blows put his oar in and turned it on its head:
“Polacanthus rudgwickensis, I would say . . . or maybe not . . .”
Well, now he’s made his mind up. I think he’s lost the plot:Horshamosaurus? Crikey! Perhaps it’s just a phase
He’s going through. At least my rudgwickensis stays . . .

[Image: bbc.co.uk]

The failure of the 305 ft high Teton dam in 1975 inundated an 80 mile long region of Idaho’s Teton and Snake River valleys, affected over 3500 homes, and killed around 13,000 head of cattle. Perhaps because of early warnings, only eleven people were killed. (It was not, of course, built by ‘Jack’, but by contractors for the US Bureau of Reclamation.)

This is the dam that jack built.

These are the abutments of rhyolite
That held up the dam that jack built.

These are the fissures, all filled with grout,
That pierced the abutments of rhyolite
That held up the dam that Jack built.

This is the water that soon sought out
Those pesky fissures, all filled with grout,
That pierced the abutments of rhyolite
That held up the dam that Jack built.

This is the loess which, without doubt,
Soaked up the water that soon sought out
Those pesky fissures, all filled with grout,
That pierced the abutments of rhyolite
That held up the dam that Jack built.

This is ‘hydraulic piping’, formed
Within the loess which, without doubt,
Soaked up the water that soon sought out
Those pesky fissures, all filled with grout,
That pierced the abutments of rhyolite
That held up the dam that Jack built.

These are the people, driven to shout
As the ‘piping’ got worse, “Look out, look out! Wet loess is weak and, without doubt, It’s soaked up the water that soon sought out Those pesky fissures, all filled with grout, That pierced the abutments of rhyolite And weakened the dam that Jack built.”

This is the flood, spilled all about,
That killed the people, driven to shout
As the ‘piping’ got worse, “Look out, look out!”
(Wet loess is weak and, without doubt,
Soaked up the water that soon sought out
Those pesky fissures, all filled with grout,
That pierced the abutments of rhyolite,
Destroying the dam that Jack built.)

[Image of female cuckoo: RSPB]

René Descartes struggled to find something that he could know for certain was real, and not a deception created by his senses. He never married, but he did have a daughter by a maid in the home where he was staying. I’m sure she must have been aware of his mental turmoil, and would have tried to help. From listening to him, she would have got the hang of deep philosophical reasoning, like “I am alive, therefore I am living”. They say that behind every great man there stands a woman, so I wondered whether this lady had anything to do with his most famous thought. (The maid, Helena Jans van der Strom, was actually Dutch, but I reckon she thought in English . . .)

Poor René Descartes
Had got in a stew
Trying to work out
What things must be true.

But his lady friend liked
To help out her great man,
So she wrote down her thoughts:
“I think,” she began.

“But now what?” she thought,
“My mind’s in a jam!”
But after a moment
She wrote, “Therefore I am . . .”

(She’d intended to write:
“Therefore I am thinking”,
But her quill had run dry
For she’d not put much ink in.)

That last word had still
To be scribed on her pad
When René came in saying,
“I’m going quite mad!”

But when René read
What his mistress had writ,
He jumped in the air, crying
“Yes! That is it!

“Just because I can think,
Therefore I exist!”
And René went out
And got very drunk.

[Image of Descartes: Wikimedia Commons]

A till printout at our local Marks & Spencer store asked “how was your M&S today?” So I told them.

Dear M&S, I visited your Horsham store today.

I sought a casual jacket, expecting an array
Of jackets I could choose from, pay for, and take away.
But all I found was a 42, on a rail with shirts and such,
Made of linen, which would crease. I didn’t like it much.

Your website shows a range of jackets that you sell;
So why do you not stock them in your shop as well?
For years you’ve been my tailor, but now you’ve let me down.
“How was your M&S today?” Not good, in Horsham town . . .

[Image: International Thyroid Oncology Group]

This month, there is no poem.
My muse has gone astray,
Complaining that no royalties
Ever seem to come her way.

But life is more than money!
And anyway, can’t she see
She gets her board and lodging
Inside my head for free?

I wonder where she’s gone to –
Has she found a better host?
James Muirden2, Richard Stilgoe3,Pam Ayres4 – or Cyril’s ghost5?

I’m sure she will return,
Like every other time6,
And help to organise my thoughts
And turn them into rhyme.

She will come back, I’m sure of it.
She’ll realise, before long,
The error of her whingeing ways . . .But what if I am wrong?

1. Actually, it hadn’t. I’d forgotten that she’d come up with the Aberfan poem. 2. Astronomer and author of The rhyming Bible and A rhyming history of Britain among others. 3. Songwriter, broadcaster and founder of the Orpheus Centre. 4. Entertainer and author of many poem collections. 5. Cyril Fletcher, comedian and actor, famous for his ‘Odd Odes’ (1913–2005) 6. See Writer’s block.

[Image: wikimedia.org]

Tip No. 7 was one of a number of huge mounds of unwanted material extracted from the Merthyr Vale Colliery in Aberfan, south Wales, and piled up on top of the nearby mountain, Mynydd Merthyr. On 21 October 1966, following several days of rain, it collapsed and slipped downhill. More than a quarter of its 150,000 or more cubic metres smashed into the village below in a slurry 12 metres deep. It killed 116 children and five of their teachers in their school, Pantglas Junior. The final death toll was 144. The risk of such a slide, and the state of the ground beneath the tip, were all known, but were not sufficiently taken into account by the mine’s owners, the UK’s National Coal Board (NCB), which then ran the UK’s nationalised coal mining industry.

There are known risks deep underground
That miners daren’t ignore;
But up above, in Aberfan,
Spoil tips had slipped before
For no-one thought to make such things
The subject of a law.

In Mynydd Merthyr’s porous sand
Rainwater trickled through
And flowed out from its sides as springs,
As everybody knew:
The springs were known, the streams were known,
And mapped in detail, too.

Yet those who said “We’ll tip it here”
Did so quite without knowing
(How could they, when they’d not been trained?)
The sorrow they were sowing.
Tip 7 grew on watery rock,
And one day would start flowing . . .

Some worried it might slide, but kept
Their silence, lest they lose
Their jobs or face their peers’ disdain.
Then came the dreadful news:
A hundred and sixteen children died,
Enveloped in the ooze.

Sir Edmund* blamed the NCB,
Who’d said that all was well
(And hadn’t cared to heed advice
From miners, truth to tell).
So Aberfan was failed by those
Who might have spared such hell.

* Lord Justice Sir Herbert Edmund Davies, respected Welsh barrister, Privy Councillor and Chairman of the Tribunal appointed to inquire into the Aberfan disaster. It reported in August 1967.

[Image: Nuffield College, Oxford]

I suspect that proper plumbers probably wouldn’t give it houseroom, but it’s a godsend to do-it-yourself amateurs.

If a water leak’s becoming quite a problem in your plumbing
And mending it’s a job you really hate,
Don’t despair, for here’s my point: you can seal that pesky joint
With a generous blob of good old Plumber’s mait.

It’s really quite fantastic, this tub of off-white mastic,
And helps us DIYers extricate
Themselves from tricky spots just by using lots and lots
Of Evo-stick’s amazing Plumber’s mait!

[Image: Homebase]

In January this year (2015), the Natural History Museum announced plans to replace the 26-metre cast of a Diplodocus dinosaur, popularly known as ‘Dippy’, that has stood in its main hall since 1979 with a 25-metre skeleton of a female blue whale. The new exhibit is expected to be hung from the ceiling in 2017. But no-one had consulted Dippy…

Dippy Diplodocus stood her ground:
“I’ll not from here be moved.
I’m a tourist magnet, the star of the show,
And cannot be improved.”

“You’ve been where you are for thirty-six years,”
The curators explained, “And we love you;
But time marches on, and we’ve got this idea
For something to hang just above you.

“There just isn’t room for two creatures your size.
In a couple of years, we’ll unveil
Something we think will still pull in the crowds:
It’s the skeleton of a blue whale.”

“Well, Dippy old thing,” the curators went on,
“The fact is, you’re only a copy –
Just a century-old2 plaster cast, one of ten.
So calm down, and don’t get so stroppy.

“The good news for you is, you could go on tour –
It’s high time that you had some fresh air;
And we’ll knock up a weatherproof version to stand
In the garden here. Isn’t that fair?”

Dippy’s reaction cannot be reported:
The air in the hall became blue.
Which is fitting, because in a couple of years,
The inhabitant will be blue, too.

1 Whales are thought to have evolved from hoofed land mammals, returning to the sea about 50 million years ago 2 Actually, 110 years old: the cast was donated in 1905 by Andrew Carnegie and is based on an original specimen in the Carnegie Museum of Natural History in Pittsburgh. The other nine are in museums worldwide – there’s one in Paris.

[Image: The Guardian]

The parameters that determine our planet’s climate, including carbon dioxide, have been varying more or less cyclically for at least the last 800,000 years, each within its own ‘envelope of natural variation’. But the Earth’s atmosphere has noticed changes in recent times, and is consulting its doctor.

“And how are we feeling today?”“Well, I’ve been up and down, truth to tell,For the last 80,000 decades;But now I feel really unwell.”

“Hmm. I see your historical records
Have never behaved themselves decently;
But they’ve always stayed nicely within
Certain limits – until fairly recently.

“The news is not good, I’m afraid,
But in hindsight, not really surprising.
Your envelope’s natural limits
Are breached: CO2 is still rising.”

“Oh doctor, then what is the cure?Is there anything that I can do?”
“No, it isn’t your fault, don’t feel guilty.
It’s what everyone’s doing to you.”

1 – Parts per million (see graph, in which ‘Present’ means 2015 – the value is now above 400 . . .)
2 – The mid-Pacific mountain-top observatory of the US National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration which has been continuously monitoring and collecting data related to atmospheric change since the 1950s.

[Image: lows.co.uk]

New Year’s Day marks a rather arbitrary point when planet Earth begins a new circuit of the Solar System and many of its inhabitants put up a new calendar. It’s also a reminder of Time’s unique quality . . .

Welcome to New Year’s Day, twenty-fifteen,
Born from the womb of Deep Time.
How the year will turn out remains to be seen,
Just like the rest of this rhyme!

But while lines in a poem can be dropped, rearranged,
Or replaced if the rhyme’s not spot-on,
What happens in Time stays happened, unchanged.
Time, as they say, marches on.

[Image: ssqq.com]

Jack Sprat would eat no fat, and his wife would eat no lean, so their different dietary preferences avoided food waste. Similarly, my two eyes have different visual strengths but cooperate to help navigate the body that carries them.

Mr Sprat and Mrs Sprat
Would go to any lengths
To make good use of what they had –
From differences come strengths!

My right eye’s good for distances,
My left does better nearer;
And so, between them both, you see,
They make the world much clearer!

As Sprats exchanged their bits of meat
Before their tums received them,
So my optic nerves get swopped
Before my brain perceives them.

My brain then does the clever stuff
Of handling what they see
And painting pictures in my head
In glorious 3-D.

The Sprats had food enough to live,
And I’ve got quite good sight.
The moral’s clear: use what you’ve got,
And you’ll get by all right.

[Images: Mama Lisa’s World; Computer Measurement Group]

Road vehicles currently need a human to be part of their control system, and humans have generally convinced themselves that they enjoy being placed in this demeaning rôle. But things are changing . . .

How I miss things on cars: starting handles,
Grease nipples, prop shafts, a choke,
Carburettors and double de-clutching,
Contact-breakers – all gone up in smoke.

The spare wheel’s now facing extinction:
Will the handbrake be next? Or maybe
The car will be driven by computer,
So the driver’s redundant? We’ll see* . . .

But maybe it’s not such a bad thing
For humans to once more be free
Of being a cog in a system,
Which driving a car’s made them be . . .

* Just before Christmas 2014, Google announced a prototype vehicle capable of “fully autonomous driving”.

[Image: Wikimedia]

The Belgian priest, astronomer and professor of physics at the French section of the Catholic University of Leuven, Georges Lemaître (1894–1966) was the first known academic to propose the theory of the expansion of the universe. (In 1927, Lemaître was the first to estimate what is now known as the Hubble constant, two years before Edwin Hubble published his.) I thought there might be a conclusion to be drawn from the fact that you and I are as much part of the Universe as are the galaxies.

The Universe is very big;
It seems it’s getting bigger
According to one Georges Lemaître,
An underrated figure.

The journal that he published in
Was Belgian – folk ignored him.
He tried again, in English now,
And soon folk would applaud him.

We’re all part of the Universe
(Well, that’s my understanding),
Does that explains obesity?
Is everyone expanding?

[Image: baen.com]

A certain young person of my acquaintance is going through a phase of questioning everything. Often, the questions are simple, but a proper answer would take more than their attention span to deliver, even if you knew it. It’s an excellent trait in youngsters, but one that grandparents should ideally be shielded from for at least four years. But I have a remedy for anyone so afflicted.

The use of the question Why?
By children aged four years or less
Should not be allowed, for Why?
Makes their elders show signs of distress.

As parents and grandparents know,
It’s persistently posed by such tots.
The solution is never to show
That it’s got your brain tied up in knots.

If their questioning makes you feel weary,
Don’t admit that you’re all in a tizz,
Just tell them, whatever their query,
The answer is this: “’Cos it is!”

[Image: germguy.wordpress.com]

What do you do when you can’t extract a 425 million-year-old fossil from the material in which it’s embedded? Mark Sutton, of Imperial College London, grinds away a few tens of microns at a time, taking digital images of each exposed surface. Some clever data manipulation then lets him construct a 3-D virtual image of the creature, which can then be manipulated on a computer screen. The technique has revealed several new organisms from the 425 million-year-old mid-Silurian deposits of the Herefordshire Lagerstätte on the Welsh borders.

Mark Sutton makes serial sections
Of fossils embedded in stone
And, with digital snaps, makes connections
That never before could be shown.

With his digital processing arts
He can image the fossil complete,Including the creature’s soft parts –
An impressive and valuable feat!

Dibasterium, Enalikter, Kulidroplax,
From Herefordshire’s rich Lagerstätte,
Have succumbed to Mark’s gentle attacks,
And now we can see them much better.

He can colour each body division,
Rotate them, and zoom in and out,
Revealing, with 3D precision,
The creature from tail end to snout.

Now others can research his creatures
Without risk of loss, theft or harm,
And examine their new-revealed features
In all of their digital charm.

Is it palaeontological perfection?
Not quite, for one problem persists:
At the end of Mark’s serial sectioning
The fossil no longer exists!

[Image of Enalikter: Derek Siveter and Oxford Today]

Having just walked up the scarp slope of the South Downs near Chanctonbury Ring, I met a rambler who asked the way to Cissbury Ring. I referred him to a nearby fingerpost, but it wasn’t much help.

When you tread our ancient byways and walk our ancient hills,
You look out for a sign to show the way.
You spot a distant fingerpost and stride in hope towards it
To read what helpful guidance it will say.

But sometimes1, when you reach it, it is no help at all:
Four fingerboards point north, south, east and west,
On one is carved a message: “Walk this way” as all it says.
The trouble is that so do all the rest2.

Where does this footpath go to, is what you want to know.
It puts you in an existential flap –
The only thing’s to toss a coin and see where chance will take you.
Next time, you really ought to take a map . . .

1. Fortunately, many signposts on other paths do offer more useful information. But not this one. 2. Actually, two say “South Downs Way”, one says “Public Bridleway”, and the third says “Restricted Byway” (see photo above).

Where’s Stanford in the Vale
And Draycott in the Clay?
The first’s in Staffs, the other’s in Berks;
Perhaps I’ll go, one day.

At Ashford in the Water3
And Luddington in the Brook4,
I rather think I might get wet –
But I’ll go and take a look.

There’s Coton in the Elms5,
And here’s a Hole-in-the-Wall6!
But we don’t want Spital in the Street7,
So I won’t go there at all.

1 Northamptonshire 2 Devon 3 Derbyshire 4 Northamptonshire 5 Derbyshire 6 Herefordshire 7 Lincolnshire (‘Spital’, of course, derives from the hospital here which once gave hospitality to poor travellers; and the ‘Street’ is Ermine Street, the Roman road from London to Lincoln)

In 1909–10, William G. Allen patented a method of cold-forming screw heads around a hexagonal die. The tool for driving such screws is now known to engineers as an Allen (or hex) key. It comes in different sizes and is easy to use, as a certain grandson has demonstrated.
Our Neolithic ancestors made tools of flint and bone
As they hadn’t worked out how to extract metal out of stone.
The Bronze Age, then the Iron age, came; and then, eventually,
The human race invented the amazing Allen key.

A simple bar of iron, bent one-fourth1 along its length,
Lets you tighten socket screws without excessive manual strength.
And I have seen a one-year-old pick up an Allen key
And put it in a socket head – and do so easily.

The next stage of young Joseph Judge’s Allen-key enlightening
Is: “Long end in for spinning down, and short end in for tightening2”.
In years to come, when fully trained, what wonders might we see
As Joe grows up and wields his own amazing Allen key?

1 It’s roughly a quarter. (If one end becomes rounded with use, grinding a few millimetres off the length produces a fresh new hexagonal end!) 2 At a more advanced level, he’ll learn that the different arm lengths can give you useful access options, too.

[Image: Fitzpatrick Woolmer]

What can fly, but has no wings?
It’s on your hands and ages things.
There’s one for bed and some for meals.
It’s often kept, and sometimes heals.

There’s one for everything under the sky*:
One to be born, and one to die;
One to mourn, and one to dance;
And one to speak, given half a chance!

There’s one to weep and one to laugh,
Ones to mend or tear in half,
One to demolish, and one to build.
It leaves a vacuum that cannot be filled.

It’s sometimes troubled, sometimes bad,
And desperate ones will make you sad.
But it has a nick that you can stitch –
Perhaps the good and bad will switch?

It waits for no man, marches on:
Before you know it, it is gone.
It is used up but can’t be stored;
Too much of it and you’ll be bored.

When on your hands, you speak of killing it
Or wasting it, though never spilling it.
And if it’s up, it has run out –
So what it is, you’d best find out!

You’ve spent a little of it reading
What I’ve written. If you’re needing
Help, the clue is in the rhyme:
The word you’re looking for is what stops everything happening at once**.

* Thanks, Ecclesiastes (3:13), though I’ve left out your more violent examples.** Thanks, Albert Einstein and/or John Archibald Wheeler (Google seems undecided, but in his 2017 book The reality Frame, Brian Clegg says JAW had seen the phrase as a graffito, and that a very similar phrase occurs in Raymond King Cummings’ sci-fi novel The Girl in the Golden Atom).

[Image: phillipbrande.files.wordpress.com]

Launched in March 2004 from Kourou in French Guiana aboard an Ariane-5 rocket, the Rosetta mission took over 10 years to travel more than six billion kilometres and reach Comet 67P/Churyumov–Gerasimenko. The European Space Agency say it cost around 1.3 billion euros. The plan is that, in November, a lander called Philae will anchor itself to the surface and deploy a number of on-board experiments, while the (nameless) orbiter will fly round and round the comet taking measurements as it passes close to the Sun. There was restrained jubilation at the Darmstadt mission Control as Rosetta arrived at the comet on 6 August 2014. But not everyone was so happy . . .

So here I am: I have arrived.
Is this the reason I survived
A ten-year trip through empty space:
To reach this god-forsaken place?
Was this the target that they meant
When they pre-programmed my ascent?
Was there an unplanned deflection?
Or did they choose the wrong direction?

Ten years to get here, and for what?
They fired me off, and then forgot –
They left me all alone to roam
The Solar System, far from home.
Half a billion miles from Earth! It
Makes me wonder, was it worth it?
What so special in this lump
Of rock and ice? It’s just a dump.

It seems I’ve got to orbit round
This frozen hunk that I’ve just found,
They’re demanding that I must
Map the ground, inhale some dust,
Taste and smell the strange aroma
They hope is in the comet’s coma.
And they’ve plans for something grander
When I’ve dumped my Philae lander.

It’s been riding on my shoulder;
Soon, it’s got to drill that boulder1.
(Glad to see the back of it
And all its clever techie kit:
Ratios of isotopes2,
Magnetics3, structure4 – even hopes
Of finding signs of life5, and more –
It’s been a thankless, tiresome chore.)

It never was a lot of fun
But phew!, I’m getting near the Sun,
So it will not be too surprising
If I – and it – start vaporising.
And when they’ve finished using me,
What then? As far as I can see
They’ll turn me off, abandoned, lost,
And try to justify the cost.

[Image: blendra.com]

AAH is a local independent monthly free magazine. It is produced by a two-man editorial-photographic team to a seriously high standard. Lapses are very rare, but this one caught my eye and wouldn’t let it go until I’d written to the editor, Ben M——, about it.

Hi Ben. It’s a matter of principle
That, when two words sound almost the same,
Great care should be taken with spelling:
Precision’s the principal aim.

For words have a history, a story
To tell, of their passage through time;
And the history of ‘principle’ and ‘principal’
Mean their spellings refuse to align.

They both come from variants of princeps,
The Latin for ‘chief’, it appears.
Old French took each variant and tweaked them
To mean different things down the years.

Copyright & contact:

Gordon Judge, 1999 to present. Please contact me if you'd like to use any of the poems.
Email: geoverse@hotmail.co.uk

Thanks:

With thanks to my sources of inspiration: my wife and her Open University books; Horsham Geological Field Club, its speakers and field trips; my son for sharing his internet space; and, er, well, life, really.